Family, Education, Pleasure, Pain… it's all about balancing what life throws at us…reflections of a parent, educator, leader and collaborator.

Balancing ‘the suit’ with ‘the heart’

Leadership entails so many subtleties involved with interpersonal relations it’s often difficult to find a happy medium. Once you move into ADMIN you’re ‘one of them’! ‘The suit’, used as a term to refer to an administrator who is part of ‘the establishment’. Inferences (and direct criticisms) abound that now that you’re ‘one of them’, you’re only interested in CYA, the Bottom Line (whatever that is!) and The Cold Hard Facts. Somehow, you’ve lost ‘the heart’ you once had. So… how do you navigate the waters of school administration and show that ‘the heart’… is still there (and going strong) WHILE balancing The Cold Hard Facts, the Bottom Line and CYA (all very pragmatic endeavors!)?

Help me out here… I expect that your answers to that question are far more insightful than mine. Here’s what I think (and grapple with)…

TRUST. Build it with everyone. Respectfully disagree with those whose opinions you don’t share. Do not undermine anyone.

That is so easy to say and not nearly as easy to do. I have heard some valuable advice: “Be yourself”; “Show integrity with the things you say and do”. Unfortunately, the difficult times are often accompanied by divided loyalty. What’s best for: your community (already a hodgepodge of divided perspectives); your professional career; your family; you. At the end of the day, I have to be able to sleep at night, reasonably confident that I have done my best to be the kind of person I WANT to be.

The pictures in this blog post are from the recent flooding catastrophe that occurred in Manila (in my community). Any aid you can give (see link below) would be appreciated by many! I urge any individual frustrated by the actions or inaction of others to look inward and focus their energy on constructive efforts to help those suffering around us.